Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States medical cases

State Publishing Schedule Changes

Here's a list of the current non-standard update schedules, not including states/territories on daily or weekday schedules...

States on weekly updates: AK (T), AZ (W), CA (Th), CO (W), HI (W), ID (W), MT (Th), NV (W), OR (Th), UT (Th), WA (W), WY (T),

IL (W), IN (W), KS (W), MI (T), MN (Th), MO (Th), ND (F), NE (Th), OH (Th), OK (Th), SD (W),

AL (Th), AR (T), GA (W), KY (M), LA (W), MS (T), NC (W), SC (T), TN (W), TX (W), VA (Th), WV (W),

DC (Th), DE (W), MA (Th), MD (T), ME (T), NH (Th), PA (W), RI (Th), VT (W), VI (M)

State on bi-weekly updates: FL (F)

States on weekday-only updates: NM, CT, NJ, NY, GU

States/Territories without updates: IA, MP

M = Monday, T = Tuesday, W = Wednesday, Th = Thursday, F = Friday

I will update this list as additional states change their update schedule. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:50, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Florida moved to every other week, skipping the update on March 18th. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:40, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

North Dakota and South Dakota switched to weekly updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

North Carolina switched to weekly updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Indiana switched to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Utah switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:52, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Alaska, Kansas, and Michigan switched to weekly updates, while CA switched to twice a week updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 20:43, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Wyoming switched to weekly Tuesday updates Bz8x8c (talk) 00:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

This week, Idaho switched to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday updates, and Georgia switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 22:05, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Pennsylvania switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 22:33, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Montana switched to weekly Friday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

New Hampshire switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:27, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Vermont switched to weekly Wednesday updates and shutdown their dashboard. Supposedly data will continue to be available via a geodata portal update each week. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

A couple weeks ago, Kansas switched from weekly Friday updates to weekly Wednesday updates! Bz8x8c (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Last week, Michigan switched from weekly Wednesday updates to weekly Tuesday updates! Bz8x8c (talk) 01:33, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Minnesota switched to weekly Thursday updates. Cases will combine confirmed and probable cases, so confirmed cases will be calculated by subtracting 219,135 probable cases from the last update. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:23, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Massachusetts switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:45, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Alabama switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 02:01, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Rhode Island switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:00, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Mississippi switched to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 21:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Texas switched to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

California switched to weekly Thursday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:46, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Oregon switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:56, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Indiana switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 22:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Louisiana switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 23:34, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Idaho switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 23:56, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

CDC COVID Tracker switched to weekly Thursday updates, affecting Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington D.C. updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 18:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Colorado switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Washington switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Texas switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 23:42, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Delaware switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 22:08, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Alaska switched from weekly Wednesday updates to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:19, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Alabama switched from weekly Thursday updates to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:54, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Illinois switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Maine switched to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:42, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

West Virginia switched to weekly Wednesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 04:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Virginia switched to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:42, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Arkansas switched to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 13:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Iowa stopped publishing updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:03, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Add list of states on weekday-only updates Bz8x8c (talk) 19:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Virginia switched to weekly Thursday updates from CDC COVID Tracker. Bz8x8c (talk) 23:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Maryland switched to weekly Tuesday updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:27, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Montana switched to weekly Thursday updates from CDC COVID Tracker. Bz8x8c (talk) 22:04, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Oregon and Alabama switched to weekly Thursday updates from CDC COVID Tracker. Bz8x8c (talk) 02:51, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

On March 15, 2022, South Carolina switched to a new dashboard reflecting a significant increase in confirmed deaths. Then on March 22, 2022, South Carolina's dashboard reflected a significant decrease in confirmed deaths that approximately offset the previous week's increase, which caused a decrease in the overall deaths and a negative value for the daily deaths for the country. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:37, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Moving table at end of year

Do we move the 2022 table immediately—on 1 January. Or, do we wait until 15 January? If I remember correctly, we waited some time into January in past years. But we've never discussed it beyond accusing each other of waiting too long, etc. ;) Thosbsamsgom (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I am wondering the same thing! After yesterday's update, I was reading up on how to split the 2022 table into its own page. To be honest, I've never created an article or template page in Wikipedia, so I don't know if there's anything critical to know or if I can take care of it myself. I do think we should just start out with a fresh table tonight by going ahead and splitting out the 2022 table. Your help would be appreciated, whether you do it or tell me how to do it myself. Bz8x8c (talk) 18:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I see you've created the new split pages for the 2022 tables! I just added the links to the new pages, thinking I would need to follow them to add the 2022 data, but you've already taken care of it for me! Thanks! I'm assuming you'll be removing the 2022 rows in the current template pages and updating the starting date note on the pages as well. Bz8x8c (talk) 17:56, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Tables truncated, etc. Thosbsamsgom (talk) 12:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your help! I'm hoping to become more capable in the future so you don't have to do these types of updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

No worries. I'm happy to help where I can. Thosbsamsgom (talk) 07:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

When Do We Stop Updating Case and Death Data Tables?

This week, Iowa stopped publishing any COVID-19 updates, and Northern Mariana Islands stopped publishing updates at the beginning of 2023. Several other states have made changes to how they publish updates in the last couple months, making it difficult to get reliable data on their total cases and deaths (Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont). With the upcoming end to the Federal COVID-19 Emergency Declaration, I'm expecting more states to follow suit in the next month, at which point the data will become less and less meaningful.

Thosbsamsgom How do we decide when it's time to stop updating these tables? Who should be involved in this decision? I'm hoping someone else has some guidance for me on how long to proceed with updates. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:19, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I would recommend going to weekly updates for both tables, for now. Thosbsamsgom (talk) 06:10, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Most of the states are on weekly updates now, although they don't all pick the same day of the week! I'm just thinking we're going to end up losing a significant number of states over the next month, following Iowa's move to cease all updates, and that's really my concern. I'm also not sure how many people are even relying on this data at this point. Is there any way for us to tell how often the page is accessed? How do we request input from potential viewers who might care? Bz8x8c (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

The pageviews can be found here. I would suggest switching to updating all states on Fridays until its clear the states have ended publication. Thosbsamsgom (talk) 02:56, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

For the record, note that Arkansas also has removed total cases and deaths, giving me weekly incremental values only and forcing me to calculate new totals, while assuming they are correct and reliable. I'm not confident! Bz8x8c (talk) 01:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The national emergency has ended, therefore states health officers are no longer incentivized to publish data on a regular basis. They'll still feed case data to the CDC and DHHS, but at irregular intervals. I support switching to weekly updates for this chart until the end of the year, or stopping all updates at the end of this week (on Saturday). Thosbsamsgom (talk) 20:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Tomorrow's update will be the last update of these template tables, by necessity. In the last couple of weeks, a half dozen states stopped updating their dashboards or removed them completely, so I was forced to add them to the small list of states that I had been retrieving from the CDC COVID Tracker site. Today, I learned that the CDC COVID Tracker site will not be updated with new case data after today, which I had to pull from an archived dataset (as they already removed it from their main data tracking page today). Several other states that would have published an update today had no changes in totals. There are a small number of states that normally update on Friday, so I'll pull those updates tomorrow, if there are any. After that, I will stop making any updates after tomorrow! Bz8x8c (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Thosbsamsgom Rpvt Just wanted to make sure both of you know that Friday May 12, 2023 will be the last update, as noted above. If you know of anyone else who needs to also be aware, please tag them here as well. Bz8x8c (talk) 01:17, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Friday is good. Thosbsamsgom (talk) 02:37, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Appreciate all your work here. fwiw if you can send me the links you're using I'm happy to keep this going indefinitely, I think it's still valuable to have a reference as long as any states are publishing since it could be used to model national deaths, although certainly we should edit the front facing widget to explicitly state the paucity of data. Either way though thanks again! Kinerd518 (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Kinerd518 Thanks for the accolades! A number of states had previously stopped publishing updates to their own dashboards (or shutdown their dashboards entirely), and I was getting those from the CDC COVID Tracker site that is now shutdown as well: MT, OR, MO, NE, AL, VA, and DC. A few other states quit updating their local dashboards in the last few days, including at least NM and OK. The links to the dashboards for the rest of the states is included in the Refs row at the bottom of the table, with their dashboard either linking directly or through secondary links/buttons on those states' referenced pages. However, I'm seeing a few today that would normally update on Friday that also may have stopped updating their local dashboards after yesterday, so it may be a challenge to continue from here. Feel free to try to continue updates from each of those states, but I suspect they're going to either shutdown the relevant pages or just stop updating them soon, if not already done today. Bz8x8c (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Kinerd518 Also note that a number of states had changed the basis of their case or death counts over the last two years, usually by reporting only combined confirmed and probable counts, and those states were being calculated by subtracting out a constant from their published total values to maintain a consistent basis in our table. If you do try to retrieve updates going forward, and you want to maintain the same basis, feel free to ask me for these differential constants where applicable (I believe I included these constants in the footnotes when it occurred, although you might have to go back to previous years to find these footnotes. These states include MN, MO, OK, AL, AR, FL, LA, NC, SC, VA, WV, RI, and PR for either cases or deaths or both values. Also note that where totals are provided, I only used them and ignored the published incremental values, as the incremental values were routinely unreliable. A couple of states recently stopped publishing totals, forcing me to use their published incremental values to calculate a new total value (which was frustrating to say the least). Bz8x8c (talk) 20:26, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

ah great! all that info was very helpful, ty! the only one i stumbled on was Illinois, their weekly bar chart doesn't seem to offer sum functionality the way others do, were they one of the ones for which you were just using incremental values or am i missing something? Kinerd518 (talk) 23:18, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Illinois had a table with total cases and deaths on the ref link until after my last weekly update on Wednesday, so I'm not sure where they are posting cases and deaths now! Other states not giving totals anymore, off the top of my head, included AR and RI, so I quit using the constant value I was using for RI. There may be many others after this week that quit reporting totals as well. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:17, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, not AR. They did still have a total value. It was AL and VA that quit giving me totals, which was why I had moved to pulling their numbers off of the now-retired CDC COVID Tracker. With that now gone, their posted incremental values would be the only remaining source of data for them. Bz8x8c (talk) 00:21, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

ah that makes sense, okay great tysm for everything! i have a draft submitted for a new table because of all the source changes, until it gets approved if you don't mind i'd like to edit the main one with the intention of reverting it to your last edit (and explaining all that in the edit notes), the information we do still have needs to get out there after all Kinerd518 (talk) 01:49, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good. My final edits were just completed! Bz8x8c (talk) 02:27, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

No Longer Updated flag?

Should this page get some sort of flag template at the top indicating that it's no longer being updated (because it can't be), so it's available as a historical record only? Does such a template already exist? Fuchsia 'tude (talk) 14:28, 21 July 2023 (UTC)